Wednesday, March 19, 2008

#2 Interns

It's hard to imagine that there is anybody on the Hill who has a more menial job than a Hill Person. Well, in fact, there are thousands of them, and they are known as Hill interns. An intern's "official" function is to do the mail, answer the phones, and give tours to constituents. When interns aren't around, these are all things Staff Assistants are made to do, so Hill People love interns because interns are essentially everyone's bitch. Plus, when you're fresh out of an Ivy League college and working a job a dyslexic six-year-old could probably do, you really need to degrade and humiliate an intern every few hours to remember how super awesome you are.

You can tell the difference between an intern and a Hill Person by looking at their badge (which both prominently display outside of work hours in order to look more important.) An intern's badge is red, while a Hill Person's badge is green. The stop-light imagery is not coincidental. The bright red warning is ostensibly to protect male Hill People from creeping on young college women. In reality, much like a lower back tattoo of a butterfly, it serves as a bullseye for horny staffers who prey on unassuming and naive interns who are turned on by proximity to power. This desire to make out with an authority figure is especially helpful, because nobody loves pretending to be powerful more than a Hill Person.

Staff Assistants and LC's are especially in luck when interns are around. These are the two categories of Hill People who are literally working the most mind-numbing and unimportant jobs you can imagine. For these Hill People, the only hope of scoring some ass is by finding somebody they can impress with stories about the time they literally ran into Nancy on the Capitol subway! Or the time they stumbled into the Senators Only Elevator and Hillary complimented their tie! Stories like this serve the dual purpose of both being hilarious and showing that the Hill Person is on a first name basis with celebrity. Fortunately, interns are usually pretty dumb, so this shit works.

Notably, intern hook-ups are not limited to junior staffers. Senior staff and even some Congressman have been known to live for intern season. Also, it goes without saying that this applies only to female interns. Male interns are pretty much ignored by staff and female interns alike. Unless they intern for Senator Craig.

15 comments:

Jason Barrett said...

What does it say about me that I am not an intern, but still have a red badge?

::sigh::

Anonymous said...

The majority of Ive League graduates don't work on Capitol Hill. They get real jobs.

Anonymous said...

The majority of Ivy League graduates can also spell "Ivy League." Quit posing, tool.

Max said...

I'm an intern, and somehow have a green badge.

Anonymous said...

out of district faxes rule my life.

Anonymous said...

hahaha i may be interning this summer! lol

Anonymous said...

Who is the kid in the photo? I think I know him?

Anonymous said...

Red does not denote intern, but rather lack of 24-hour access to an office building. Green denotes access 24/7.

Anonymous said...

suggestion for your next post: column about interns who claim they "worked on the Hill." Sorry, kid, you didn't "work on the Hill," you got your dad's connections to hook you up with a summer vacation in D.C.

Anonymous said...

Actually, the colors change every couple of years. Mine four years ago was green, two years ago, red... now green. And, my 24 hour status has stayed constant.

Anonymous said...

The kid in the photo actually intered in my office in 2004...thats funny. The kis was the man though.

Anonymous said...

i know that kid...he graduated from my school last year

Anonymous said...

I'm an intern and I don't give tours or do mail or answer phones...and I have a green badge. and everyone in my office is really nice - I have yet to be humiliated or ridiculed...so basically what I'm saying is that this psot is not at all an accurate reflection of my experience and is instead the biased commentary of someone with little knowledge of what they're talking about.

Anonymous said...

I would like to make the argument that the color of your badge has no bearing whatsoever on your awesomeness. As a faithful employee of the Sergeant at Arms, I can attest to the fact that numerous individuals with red badges enjoy a salary 2, 3, and occasionally 4 times greater than a SA, LC, or even a junior LA. Besides the awesome salary, we also have access to sweet perks such as business cards, blackberries, and most importantly, performance bonuses. I think I like the color red.

Anonymous said...

Whatever Ivy Leaguer that said they never work on the Hill and instead get "real" jobs should learn how to spell IVY...not hard, but definitely something that would be required of someone seeking a job on the Hill